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This is an article about the interview that we did with a very special guest, who came from Dubai. His name is John Lincoln, the author of “Connect the Dots.” He is also the vice president of a large corporation that is currently based in the United Arab Emirates. He has been around the business world and has had his share of ups and downs with business as well.

David: Welcome John.

John: Thank you very much David for having me here today. It’s my pleasure.

David: I really appreciate your joining us. I found your details quite intriguing and I certainly wanted to interview you for quite a while now, especially about your book, “Connect the Dots.” It certainly is something I believe our listeners can certainly benefit from. Firstly, can I ask you how you started out as an entrepreneur and a business leader?

John: You know… I’ve been very fortunate. I was born in Malaysia, and I moved to the US where I started my career as a telecommunications professional. In the late 1990’s, I saw an opportunity to start a business in Japan, where I was based in one of my assignments. I started an e-learning business, and it failed, but I learned many things from it. Along the way, I also had the chance to advise smaller business entrepreneurs, both formally and informally. I always noticed that most small businesses are more opportunistic than strategic. I learned both from the corporate world and from observing small to medium businesses in developing and emerging economies in many markets.

David: You mentioned about the entrepreneurialship in Japan, and you opened a company that didn’t do too well. Can you talk about that please?

John: Sure. When I was based in Japan, I realized that many Japanese really want to learn how to speak English. It was the start of the internet boom in those days, and I thought that I could offer them English language lessons using the internet as key enabler. The reason being that, many Japanese, as you are all aware of, commute everyday from home to work and most of them will go to English language school right after work, in the evenings or late at night, and they pay about $60/hour. I thought that there is an opportunity to offer them English language lessons on the internet. That’s the reason why I started this business. You can offer language lessons through the internet. So I had a hybrid model where I had a call centre full of American teachers sitting there, coaching lessons, and students can call in and try the lessons and different sorts of coaching. And that was my business model at that time. The business didn’t take off because I had roughly underestimated one key factor. The internet at that time was dependent mainly on the phone line, and the phone lines in Japan at that time didn’t exactly have great service. It didn’t take off as much as I expected. I closed the business eventually and the second guy who followed after me, well, I guess it’s a billion-dollar business today. In this case the early bird didn’t get the worm and the second one got it.

David: Was the primary reason why it fell was because the market research wasn’t done properly or the tools to be used was not researched?

John: Not really. There were multiple reasons. One of the key reasons was that it was probably a bit too early in my time because internet service was dependent on the phone line, it was still a measured rate of service in Japan, and it was not a flat rate like in many developing economies today. The second reason is that I probably should not have tried to do a consumer model. Rather, I should have gone on to a b to b model, a business to business model whereby instead of developing all 150 lessons in one go, I probably should have done five or ten lessons, hired a couple of econ managers, tried and sell it to the corporations, and slowly build up on them. I had a very ambitious plan at that time which was just conceived a little bit early on.

David: Okay, but I must admit though that you’ve been pretty courageous about jumping in and trying something brand new. That’s very open-thinking.

John: Yes. It involved two countries, you know. The development is down in the states and the call centre with the teachers was launched in Osaka, Japan. Of course I had some Japanese partners. I never attempted to do it myself. On hindsight, it really probably was a stupid idea at the time.

David: Well, everyone’s got 20/20 vision in hindsight, don’t they?

John: Yes. Hindsight is 20/20.

David: I suppose what I’m getting at is that you could’ve stepped out and tried something new. Does your book really explain or connect the dots for young entrepreneurs today to actually help them move forward and try something different like this if they’ve got great big ideas?

John: Yes, I’m hopeful that it will do that. One of the reasons is that I specifically introduced the book in my first chapter. On the last chapter, it’s a very personal story, the dots that I did not connect, you know. But more on that, the book actually tries to attempt to address this topic that are not normally covered in business books or in smaller or medium sized business advice books. In my first chapter, I titled it as, “Before you take the bull by the horns, know your exit.” For example, Read more »

In this article, we will talk about some great information that will help you in your business. We will feature our conversation with a fantastic guest. She will show you how to add three hours to your day with an amazing system. Let me walk you through my discussion with Shari McGuire.

Shari: Thank you for having me today.

David: I appreciate you joining me, I really do. Now, you’re famous, if I could say so, on a lot of radio talk shows all around the world. There’s ABC News, The Red Book, MSN Living… It’s quite amazing that you’ve done quite a show all around.

Shari: Well, thank you. It’s been a lot of fun.

David: It seems like you’ve got a lot of great ideas to help people actually add a lot of time to their day. It seems like a great concept, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Shari: One of the things that I found really is that I reached a point where I had been studying time management for a long time and wasn’t getting ahead from there. Then I launched the shrink your work week business. Really, the Read more »

We will be talking about a very important topic: Your VOICE! In particular, how you use your voice in a promotional video, or to promote your business in one method or another.

A lot of people are a bit scared of using their voice in order to promote their business because they think it might not be good enough or they don’t really like the sound of their own voice. But we’re here to tell you that you have to put all of that aside; that it doesn’t really matter! The point is, you have a voice and people are out there to listen to your message. We have to get over our own little fears and realize that our voice is there to give a message only. If not, then you can always make use of somebody else’s voice. But we’re going to focus on how you’re going to use your own voice and how you can do it well to promote your own business and propel it forward using simple techniques to do with the voice, how to use it, when to use it, and exactly what to do to get it up and running so that your promotional video will move forward. When we’re talking about voice, we have to consider these aspects.

The first thing that we have to look at is that it has to be your own VOICE. As mentioned, a lot of people think that they don’t like their own voice or they don’t like the sound of their own voice. But once you get over your own fear, you’ll realize that you’re not listening to yourself; other people are listening to the methods that you are talking about, and if you realize that everyone sounds different, you should be right. So people are not judging you, they are actually listening to your message.

But you might ask what happens if you don’t have a booming voice or a radio voice similar to those DJs which you hear on the late night shows with really deep and beautiful sounding voices. If you don’t have one of those, well it doesn’t matter. It really is a matter of just being you. Don’t try to be something else and don’t try to be something different. You just need to relax, have a drink of water, and have everything prepared and practiced. Practice what you’re going to talk about. Just remember, it’s your voice and you should be proud of it. When you talk, when you actually use your voice in the video for promotional purposes, you just need to talk as if you’re talking one-on-one to someone else; not to millions or thousands of people, but just to one. Pretend you’re talking to your best friend about your business and how it started. So that’s the aspect of your voice.

The second thing we need to consider is DICTION and how well you sound your words, Read more »

We’re excited about the whole concept of video because it can really showcase your business in just a few words or motions. You can use YouTube and other video social marketing sites to help you and you can put it on your own website as well. This will really make a difference. We’re all about enhancing your business exposure through video and other hot social marketing methods.

I’m very excited to share with you the topic of copy. What is copy? You might have heard a lot of people talk about it. Copy is actually the words on the page; the words that people talk about and use to describe what they are trying to say. They can be on an introductory page, a lead capture page, or some sort of brochure that you pick up in the shops. It could even be on a thank you page. Copy is just composed of the words, but it persuades people to do something, whatever it might be. Your copy or the words tell the reader what to do. You’re basically instructing them to do certain things at certain times, and that’s the beauty of copy. You can do it subliminally, or you can do it so that they know what to do. Really powerful words or copy can make all the difference.

Now this is a broad topic. We can’t get into everything about it, but we can scratch the surface. We can certainly share some great ideas to help you along the way, to allow you to move forward and start creating great copies along the way. You can get good copy, wherein everyone knows what to do and they will be persuaded one way or another to take action with whatever it might be that you want them to do. Bad copy, on the other hand, is where the readers are left confused, emotionally drained, or even abandoned, and they won’t be persuaded to do what you want them to do. So that’s the main difference between good copy and bad copy. Which one would you prefer? I know which one I would like.

Have you ever tried to describe something? Ever tried to paint a picture verbally, where you try to show it to other people without actually pointing it out to them but they know exactly what you’re talking about? Well, you’ll be using describing words, and these are adjectives. They really paint a great and graphical picture and you don’t have to worry about them because people will know exactly what you’re on about. And that’s the difference between copy and great copy. It’s a real difference between describing something and just pointing to it and saying, “There it is.” So what would you prefer? Would you prefer an apple? Or would you prefer a crispy, delicious, red, mouth-watering apple? You can see the real difference there. One is describing, and the other one is really inviting.